Facts about Silk

• Sericulture, or production of silk, has been practiced in China for more than 5000 years.
• Silk is much lower in density compared to cotton, wool or nylon. It is, therefore, highly moisture absorbent, able to absorb as much as a third of its own weight in moisture without feeling damp
• The cocoon is made of a single continuous thread of raw silk around 1 kilometer (2/3 of a mile) long
• About 2,000 to 3,000 cocoons are required to make a pound of silk. One pound of silk represents about 1,000 miles of filament
• It takes silk from over 2,000 cocoons to produce a single kimono
• It can take up to 12 hours to hand-reel only 0.25 kg of silk thread!
• Based on 1 kilometer (2/3 of mile) per cocoon, ten unraveled cocoons could theoretically extend vertically to the height of Mount Everest
• The shimmering appearance for which silk is prized comes from the fiber’s triangular prism-like structure which allows silk cloth to refract incoming light at different angles
• Silk fibers are very fine, about 10 nanometers (1/2500th of an inch) in diameter
• Strong as steel in tensile strength, silk is the strongest natural fiber known to man silk has durable and resilient qualities! A single silk fiber has a tensile strength equal to steel wire of the same diameter! By knowing the right way to take care of the fabric, one can keep the silk garments in perfect original condition for many years.
• A highly versatile fabric, silk has proven to be ideal for a variety of uses – from formal wear to sleepwear, from parachutes to rugs, from medical sutures to prosthetic arteries
• Silk has a miniscule percentage of the global textile fiber market – less than 0.2%. Yet the actual trading value of silk and silk products is in many billions of dollars since the unit price for raw silk is roughly twenty times that of raw cotton
• Current world silk production is estimated to be around 125,000 metric tons. China produces about 80% of the world’s silk.